I died. But it was more my simply going away, then my being hatefully taken. Because I was seventy four, so it was time for me to die. And I had long been seriously ill, so I was ready to die. But then we all die, though some too soon, while others not soon enough. And finally death became something for my heart to rest upon.

There was little in my life that I held as sacred for any length of time. But in spite of this indifference, the many years were not all bad. I can list the things I wanted to do but failed at, the things I could have done but did not, and list the things that succeeded quite well. But the last of my life was not as spectacular as the first of my life. But then beginnings on the scale I chose are always spectacular.

In New York City, I was a member of the firm of Appleton Century-Crofts, and later J. B. Lippincott Company. Then for the last ten years of my life I conducted a Book Review Column in newspapers throughout the South and the Mid-West. But just as writers who can no longer write, teach, so to, editors who can no longer edit, review. It is rather like studs being put in the next pastures to the mares after they can no longer stud.

During the Depression of the thirties, though, I started an avant garde magazine in the Village, and for several years it well represented the vangard of the then new literature. But the creditors eventually closed it when the revenues never did equal the expenses. But the magazine was a spectacular success because it reflected exactly what I had intended and what was needed. And I was a spectacular success among the then writers of the Village because I had provided them with an outlet to the reading public however small and briefly. But it continued to puzzle me where the creditors got the idea that the magazine would ever make a profit. Because some things should exist simply because they must. And because the brave are not supposed to pause to consider.

In hindsight, everything that came after the magazine was anti-climatic, even though it did not seem so at the time. The magazine became my carte blanche to the then publishing world of the City, and I was respected and welcomed wherever I went without ever being known personally. And for those next years it became quite the fashion for us to assault everything of the status quo, while embracing everything of the revolutionary. But once you have torn everything down that is flimsy, without having substantial replacements, the results is a large void. And even as we called names, we were being called names, without there being a judge to decide which of us were right. So finally it had become just a silly game, like a mean trick that we had played upon ourselves, and so we quit it and got jobs.

Of the little in my life that I held as sacred, I held

womanhood as sacred for probably the longest. But back then it was quite natural for young men to place women on pedestals. And until their brittleness won out finally, it was a proper location indeed for them. I married a beautiful woman who was above me socially. Apparently she believed the expectations about me that still were in circulation even that long after the magazine ceased. And she must have thought that one day I would locate on a pedestal beside her. When I did not, she spent the next years in confusion with one foot on the pedestal and the other foot off. And I spent the next years feeling that I owed her some sort of an apology. I enjoyed her very much off the pedestal though. But I felt that she did not really like having such private things done to an idol in the night. My middle years were financially comfortable, and now and then exciting, and always lonely. But I had learned to at least not be an embarrassment.

A book only becomes a book, when it is published. Until then it is a manuscript. And, too, an author only becomes an author, when he is published. Until then he is a writer. So publication is everything. Just as being commercial is everything. Because there will be no publications unless the writer, and therefore the manuscript, is commercial. But many are called, but few are chosen, as the saying goes. And if an author is not completely commercial with his first book, he will be on the subsequent books, because greed and self preservation have a way of rationalizing everything while they make strangers of friends.

During my years in the pasture, the New York publishers continually supplied me with an endless flow of review books, as did the small presses and the regional presses. Because publicity and promotion are everything in publishing. These I dutifully read and reviewed as fairly and objectively as I could for the strictly commercial ventures that they were. Then I gave this endless flow of boxes of books to libraries and to family and to friends, until they, too, became inundated with books and would have no more. Then I would stop strangers on the street and say in a husky and secretive voice, "hey, you wanta box of books?" And as an old man, that gave me a strange pleasure.

During those years, also, it was my good fortune to receive several unusual books from several rather desperate authors. Unusual books in that they certainly were not commercial ventures. Desperate authors in that they each had formed their own small presses to publish their own books after none of the established publishers would. If there had been a touch of vanity publishing in the self publication of their first books, this surely ceased with the self publication of their second, then third, then fourth books. Because book publishing is terribly expensive, and only the most determined and dedicated would persevere under such horrendous financial losses. Apparently these desperate authors drew their courage from some well that has no name. And in time I came to know each of them fairly well from their books and letters, and from their determination. So I introduced them to each other by a personal note from me, since they were from various parts of the country and could never possibly meet, so they at least would have someone similar to correspond with when I died on some today that then was still in the future.

In their unusual books, these desperate authors were certain that they were writing magnificent book worlds of gold door handles and silver bells, and characters who speak as honey glistens. But in actuality, these very unprofitable books were enough to give an editor a migraine and an English Professor cardiac arrest. Because these authors had deliberately withdrawn themselves from a life that contained normalcies and anchors and resting places and standards. And they did not allow anything to interfere with their many days of frantic writing, not love or hunger, not laughter or fear. And they sought total freedom of expression, not realizing the chaos that reigns there.

So I gave each and all their books generous and enthusiastic reviews in my column. Because there is always something of true beauty even in the very ugly. And I reran these reviews from time to time, which I never did for a commercial book. Because some things should exist simply because they must. And because the brave are not supposed to pause to consider. But mostly because the last of my life was not as spectacular as the first of my life.

To Burton Frye